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It’s evening, my tent is warm and there is a buzz of anticipation and activity reverberating outside. Everyone knows that over the next few days thousands of clergy and Veterans will arrive. Wood is being delivered for all to use, the announcer is keeping everything moving at the central fire, and the singing and the voices of the people of Oceti Sakowin Camp echo around me. I have never felt so safe outside of my home. This morning when I hitch hiked to the media center – just a few miles away- two young Native girls gave me a lift. “How do you like it here?“ “ I like it a lot, feels like home”, I answered. There was an appreciation in their momentary silence and then the jokes and playfulness began. That joyfulness is common here. I am at home.

Once in the media center, a spokes person for the elders called us together. “Much love and appreciation from the elders… I have seen such humanity here, from all of you, I will never forget it…blessings to all of your families for all you are doing.” These or similar words come often, as do the tears of gratitude. I am at home.

The next order of the day is to try to find a way to help. I am here, hoping to play a small part in changing the narrative of domination and brutality that has been our country’s legacy towards these people, the first of our land. If you are accustomed to being told what to do, you will struggle a bit here. Here you are expected and needed, to see what must be done and to do it. I wait and I pray. An old friend sends me a link to a prominent NPR show talking about what is happening here, so I took a moment to see what the world is saying. No surprise, the false narrative was stated again and again (the pipeline is not on reservation land) until the very end when someone looked at the 1851 Treaty of Laramie (which binds the US and the Lakota Sioux to an agreement on the land and the waterway). That is where the show should have actually begun. There was the momentary recognition that Energy Transfer Partners and the Army Corp of Engineers should have brought the Standing Rock Sioux into the discussion at the very beginning of the planning of the pipeline, but there was nothing offered to rectify this unconscious blunder (or conscious slight?). Instead we were told repeatedly that the pipeline is 97% completed and, “Oh, well; let’s just finish, now, can’t we?” I am always amazed at how the dominant culture spins on, seemingly unaware that its humanity is trailing in the wake of its “talk”.

There are really two battles waging. One is here, as people from around the world stand with the Standing Rock Sioux, facing unrealistic odds: might to right, weaponry to love, confusion to peace.

The other is in the American public heart and mind. The clock is ticking. Will we take the time to understand the history and the total disregard of people for profit that has led to this moment? Or will we continue to prepare for the holiday spirit that left us long ago?

This is the moment for those who have cried for peace to STAND UP. This is the moment to celebrate our collective humanity and to allow peace to flourish. This is the moment to live. If your soul has quickened with all that is happening here, you are not alone. We are emerging. The children of the sun are emerging and we will not be silenced and we will not be defeated. This is our moment. Stand with us. Stand with Standing Rock. Come home. Wherever you are, be at home.

Photo compliments of Redhawk  Standing Rock Rising

For more Oceti Sakowin Camp

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Seven Lakota Values

 

You can cover up the fact that you are made of dirt,

But it doesn’t change a thing.

You can wallow in the slimiest of pits,

But the radiance of the sun still shines from your eyes

When you remember.

We Are All Indigenous

A little ball of clay with the sweet thread of breath

Here for a few moments

Not to chop the Creator into little pieces

Or lay waste the Creation

We are here to celebrate

We Are All Indigenous

Placed with love and kindness

To dance with one another

On this floating paradise

Anything less is insanity

We Are All Indigenous

No one is expendable

There is no them only us.

Those who recognize this

Have peace.

Those who uphold this

Live peace.

We Are All Indigenous

Accept it while you are here

We will all be happier when you do

There is no them only us.

 

“If you are a rock, stand up like a mountain.” Standing Rock by Trevor Hall

I am going back to Sacred Stone Camp to stand with my brothers and sisters in peace. There is no time to waste. The black snake is not just a pipeline. It is greed and ignorance made stronger by hate and fear. We are all indigenous. The water protectors are standing for the water for all. It is time to open our eyes and hearts and end the nightmare of separation we have come to know as “colonializing”.

It is time to let people live in dignity and peace with clean air, water, good food and shelter for all. This is so very possible. There is no them only us.

 

cover photo compliments of Pat McCabe

Hold on to your innocence.    Hold onto your trust.

The wind whistles through the trees and the leaves are forced from their perch. We come in innocence and how do we depart? Are we withered and bowed, scraping and fighting or are we free to fly?

What a strange time we live. Everything is possible, but we choose not to see.

We have lost the will and the way to discern, so the shiny seems valuable and the dirt replaceable and the air and the water are free, so go to sleep little one.

We have handed over our children to be educated. We have handed over our souls to be saved. We have handed over our allegiance to be mighty. We have handed over our bodies to be toys. We have handed over our love to be labeled like sides of beef. We have handed over our compassion to be right. We have forsaken joy. We have exchanged it for fear.

As surely as we have given away these precious bits of self, they can be reclaimed. It is time to shift the mindset. It is time to come home again.

The battles we are waging inside and out are not our battles. They began long ago and we have inherited their misfortune. We have followed a path of destruction, but it is not too late to change course.

The only battle worth our time and energy is the one that challenges our humanity. The one that tells us there is not enough, the one that promotes the other as less than, the one that insists on raping the earth. We are (all) that “one”. We each carry the seeds of destruction and hate. We feed it with fear and we hide it in doubt.

The solution? It is simple. Love. Love yourself enough to become unshackled. The love of others will then come easily. Love the earth as the sweet blessing of mortality, treat her kindly, for you came from her bosom and will return to her. Acknowledge your sacredness and you will recognize the same in all living.

We have been born into divide and conquer. Those who insist on perpetuating the myth of separation will suffer it.

I am growing older. Time is growing shorter. Each day I pray for wisdom. Each day I pray for peace. I find fellowship with those who know these truths and I find solace in my earthly roots. I still believe we can attain peace and I work towards it unabashedly.

The eternal dance of love is calling. How long can we afford to ignore the request?

 

 

I took the cover picture on route to Standing Rock to help the protectors of water. I look forward to my return. They are my brothers and sisters in this great turning.

Please find a way to support their effort.  Thank you. For more visit: Sacred Stone Camp  

There are many viewpoints from which we can see the world, our relationship to it and to one another. There are many masks we wear, many clubs we join, and many beliefs we shoulder throughout our lives. But I have yet to experience one as satisfying, as fulfilling as that of viewing the world thorough the eyes of being human.

We cannot, nor should we, discount or disregard our histories, our cultures or our faiths, but it is crucial that we recognize our humanity first and foremost.

The problems facing us that are provoking fear and distrust are not new. The solutions that have failed us before will fail us again.

There is one solution rarely tried; perhaps it is too simple, perhaps it is too hard. If we could choose to recognize and celebrate our unique and precious humanity and cultivate peace and fulfillment within ourselves, we would welcome a new perspective to the mix.

But there is more. We must also recognize that which robs us of our humanity. It is not our friend and we must have the guts to walk away from these chains that bind us.

Keep to the path that was laid for you before you were born, to the hope that was instilled in and upon you, and to the strength that has never left you.

We are here because of the love of those who have gone before us and the Love of something we may never fully understand but can feel.

We are here today because of what we can leave for those not yet here. Put down the weapons of power and hatred. Pick up the weapons of clarity and fearlessness. It is not as cloudy as you may think. It is not as desperate.

Find the strength in yourself to carry on and find support in those who cherish humanity and the earth.

The tide is turning. Humanity is rising.

Celebrate your part in it.

 

Welcome to Beaver County Pennsylvania and a very particular place dubbed “Little Italy”. Small town Rochester was a true melting pot of nationalities, large and small industry and people who had not yet forgotten village life. It was for the first 18 years of my life, home.

In this place are the stories, the realities, the lessons and the loves of the composite that began “me”. I leave today, as I always do, mixed with pride, misgivings, sadness and hope that this beautiful place will not forego its beauty for the greed of promised jobs, progress, and the illusive American dream that is beginning to leave so many behind.

I grew up across the street from an industrial park and my not so favorite joke is that I should probably glow in the dark for the places we played as children. Forty plus years later much of the polluted land remains unusable. Thirteen miles as the crow flies lies the Shippingport nuclear plant and now near-by a new “cracker plant” will replace a mountain along the river side… Apparently the good folks of the county have forgotten the strip mining, the defunct steel mills and other industries which promised jobs and progress  – only for the immediate moment in time – leaving the people and the land raped generation after generation until yet another form of “progress” came with yet another story line of promised jobs and…

What I know is that the beauty is being lost, the pollution far greater, the division among people more pronounced as the growth of the individual’s wealth and “rights” have replaced the village caring and compassion that I once knew.

Yes, I did not always like it when the old ladies called my mom and told her when I was  being unruly. But there was safety in that knowing and demands for respect of one another.

Having lunch with a old neighborhood pal I was reminded of just how mixed our neighborhood was and how the lines of race were diminished or even non existent in my young life. Mr. William Douglas was not only one of my greatest mentors of kindness and strength, as principal of my school, he was the authority. And he was Black.

Through the years I have seen an increase in the lines of segregation, I have felt the trepidation and uncertainty of people who never shown concerns of “race”. I have watched the village life be destroyed as strangers replaced the old guard and no one took the time to maintain respect and communication with them. I have watched from afar as the world’s increased isolationism has become the new normal and I am here to tell you, we are losing a piece of our humanity with this climb to the top, to be “comfortable”, to protect, not share, our assets, and the need to find a villain to blame for our woes. We are losing community. We have lost the village.

But true to my nature, which was born of this hopeful place, I was thrilled to step into a memorial dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen while I await
my plane and happy to learn, yet again, of another piece of my history, our history. I will be forever proud of my people, all of my people. I will wish for them a return to simplicity, an honoring of the earth that holds them and most importantly a respect for one another. These were the hopes instilled in me in “Little Italy” and they remain in my heart as cornerstone to the possibility of peace.

Wishing you a village.

She is a real survivor. She left the coop a few years ago and took a posse with her. They took up in the turkey coop, which is now a duck coop, and lived sort of happily until a raccoon got her best friend and her mate. Then I noticed her missing and I was a bit frantic because she had grown on me. Her independent spirit, her zest for life, her being the one to catch the early worm…

So I looked for her, expecting to find remains. Instead I found her perched on top of a round bale of hay in Beauty’s barn. (For those who do not know, Beauty is a neutered mule.) There she was sitting on a pile of eggs.

The raccoons and skunks have been very busy this year and I was leery of leaving her alone outside, but I came to realize that Beauty was protecting her. I would watch him hanging about his barn more often these days and venturing inside which he seldom did unless it was storming. And on more than one early evening I saw him gallop in that direction of the barn, snorting. I wouldn’t mess with Beauty. I doubt anybody would. So I hunched she was going to be OK.

My next awakening to my chicken friend was when I realized that she was sitting and sitting and those eggs were never going to hatch because they were not fertile – her mate had died earlier in the year. So there I was in the sheep barn and I spied three unattended fertile eggs. What were the chances? Would she be able to sit that much longer? I grabbed the eggs and sprinted to her perch. I had a young friend with me and I noted that with a little luck we might still have baby chicks this year. I carefully deposited the fertile eggs beside her.

We left her not certain the eggs would be accepted, but when I went back a bit later I saw that she had pulled them under her, and that now she continued that direct, blank stare of one who is intent on making something miraculous happen.

Days later I wanted to take a peak and I saw her at a distance pecking and strutting as if she were already a mom. I checked the nest for shells or rotting eggs. No shells. This was simply one of those moments when the chicken mom decides it is warm enough, hedges her bets and flees for a moment’s respite, water and hopefully and insect or two. I had just enough time to pull some of the “dead” eggs before she hustled back to her nest. I didn’t want the smell to tip off a predator.

Each night I reminded Beauty to watch over her, needlessly of course, as he was devoted to his new companion. And then one day, it happened. I heard someone yell, “Beauty is an uncle!” And so he was. Only one of the three survived. I suspect the chick was a few days old when we saw him. Most likely bored waiting on the others to hatch, he had enough of the nest and took a dive over the side of the bale. The mother must have been beside herself and as there was no way to escort him back to the nest, she carried on with that the little one.

If you haven’t witnessed it, there is nothing quite like the devotion of a mother hen to her young. Fierce at the slightest provocation and teaching every step of the way…

We have a small shed for them now, while we build a new one on wheels. She is such an adventurer; I think it only fitting…

Summer’s ecstasy and frenetic pace are slowing now. I hope to use the winter to tell the tales that have been spun. Wishing you well. Let kindness win.

I am grateful to live in a place that is full of cultural exchange and allows for creative interplay of concepts and the weaving of dreams. Today as I sheared the sheep I had a conversation with Willie, a visiting friend. He helped me remember a time, decades ago, when I was in the company of one who had dedicated her life to serving in Love. She had come to a few of us in a bit of a quandary, because she realized she was loving some people more than others…after her “confession” of sorts and thinking it through, she came to something like this: “Perhaps in loving you all more, I am stretching my capacity to love and in that way I might have more room to love others.” This was her reconciliation with the discomfort of her limitations.

I applauded then, as I do now, her relentlessness to love.

Another tidbit that arose with Willie and the sheep was remembering my participation in a conference geared to creating teams. One of the main points of consideration was this: No dark thoughts. How refreshing.

I think I will be practicing that one today.

 

For those who dare to feel the depth of sorrow within, I salute you.  For those who cry anguished tears and simultaneously feel the flower of hope blossoming in your breast, I commend you.  For those who reject the inhumanity with angry voices, I recognize you…

It would be oh, so easy to give up. It would be oh, so easy to doubt.

But the gift of Life demands much more from us. The gift of being human is still waiting to be opened. We have seen our riches in each other’s eyes, we have tasted the sweetness of victory in the birth of each child, in the laughter we share and in the joy embedded in our hearts. This is what it means to be human. This is what we need to celebrate in ourselves and in one another.

We cannot afford the luxury of confusion. We cannot afford to fight the battles the way we are expected to fight. It is time to fight differently. It is time for the heart to lead; it is time to win this war with love.

And what if it is simply about tipping the scales in the direction of love, for a change. What if it is about the recognition of one spirit, one people, and one earth?

What if we could take all the hopelessness and turn it into courage, like straw to gold. What if this is the moment that we rise up together, loving, honoring and respecting one another? There is much to heal from and some of us are in such pain that we misuse our power and some are in such pain that we strike back but I am speaking to those who can still love. Let your love be a beacon, let your clarity sing out. Give to one another. Don’t let this moment rob us. We are better than this.

Take time to calm your spirit. Take time to be clear and when you are, bring your goodness to the world. People say we need another Martin, but I know this is the time when we all must stand up and be Martin, be Gandhi, be Mandela. See the light in one another and support it. Find a way everyday. Let us please take back this garden.

We can.